The
1943 report of special
envoy to the Middle East, General Patrick J. Hurley, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
opposing Zionists ambitions in Palestine produced a predictable response among
certain adherents to that cause in the United States. Here is how
Hurley's biographer, Don Lohbeck, described it:

Another
faction within the State Department (besides the pro-imperialists and the
pro-Communists ed.) that was more concerned with promoting the interests of a
foreign group than in protecting the interests of the United States was the
pro-Zionist element—and, because of Hurley's refusal to endorse the Zionist
program for the imposition of a Jewish state on the inhabitants of Palestine,
they joined in attempting to destroy his influence with the President and smear
him out of any position of national importance....

The
formula was simple. First, Hurley's opponents in the State
Department "leaked" secret information to selected columnists and
commentators; second, this information was published in a twisted and
perverted form, veiled with mysterious innuendoes that actually said nothing
but implied all manner of evil things; third, political pressure groups
tried to have Hurley removed from all positions of influence on the basis of
the false charges and innuendoes.

First: unnamed
government officials supplied propagandist Drew Pearson
with confidential information from General Hurley's report to Roosevelt on his
interview with King
Ibn Saud.

Second: on August 17,
the following paragraph appeared in Pearson's newspaper column:

Ibn
Saud, now recognized as the most powerful of all Arabs, gave Hurley some strong
words against the Jews in Palestine, saying he was determined to drive them
from all Arab lands. Hurley reported that he had told Ibn Saud
diplomatically that he was in agreement.

Third: two days
later, the Zionist Congressman from New York, Emanuel Celler, picked up the
smear campaign and "threatened to seek a Congressional investigation of
the activities of three State Department employees unless the State Department
'ceases its absurd opposition to Palestine as a haven for the
Jews.'" In a letter to Roosevelt, Celler said:

I
cannot remain silent in the face of the brazen betrayal of Palestine by the
British Foreign Office. I cannot bite my tongue any longer while
Jew-haters, many of whom are Roosevelt-baiters, grin like Cheshire cats at the
abetting of this betrayal by some of our own officials in the State Department.

Celler
named General Patrick J. Hurley, Harold Hoskins (formerly executive assistant
to Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle, Jr.), and Wallace Murray (State
Department adviser on political relations) as among those "who have
contributed their bit to the betrayal of Palestine." He further
charged:

Hurley
has been wined and dined by the self-alleged friend of the Allies, King Ibn
Saud, and has contracted thereby a severe case of myopia, capable of focusing
his vision in the one direction only as indicated by his host.

As
the charge of anti-semitism [sic] continued, and others joined in the smear
campaign, Hurley felt compelled to discuss the matter with the President.
On August 20, he wrote to Roosevelt as follows:

This
letter is for the purpose of keeping the record straight.

I
rendered a written report to you on my conversations with His Majesty Ibn Saud,
King of Saudi Arabia. I amplified that report verbally in a conference
with you....

King
Ibn Saud never made any such statement to me [as printed by Drew Pearson] and I
never made any such reply to the King. I did not report to you or to
anyone else any such conversation.

The
balance of Mr. Pearson's column above referred to on the Arab-Jewish policy is
also false as far as I am concerned.

From
Mr. Pearson's column and from the Washington Daily News of August 19th,
I notice that certain Congressmen and Senators, especially Congressman Emanuel
Celler of New York, have made various false charges against me, all I presume,
based on the Pearson falsehood. In addition to all that, they threaten me
with a Congressional investigation. Besides that which is appearing in
the press, I am receiving letters from Zionist Jews. Every one of
these contains an attack or at least language that is intimidating. I am
being baited by the Jews.

I
am not at all worried or even annoyed by these false accusations. I feel,
however, that the purpose of this falsehood is to injure my relations and, more
important, the relations of the United States with the King of Saudi
Arabia. The latter at this time might, as you know, cause some delays and
embarrassment. In justice to King Ibn Saud I think it should be repeated
here that the falsehoods published by Mr. Pearson and his backers do unjustly
misrepresent the King. King Ibn Saud expressed to me the most kindly
solicitude for the welfare of the Jewish communities in the Arab nations.
The Arabs always speak of the Jews as their kins-people. The king,
however, is opposed to giving a Jewish minority control over an Arab majority
in any Arab nation.

In
my written report to you I did not detail my conversations with King Ibn Saud
on the Palestine problem. I merely said that the King's attitude on that
subject had been published in an interview in Life Magazine and had been
expressed in a letter to you personally. All of this occurred before I
conferred with the King.

All
this makes more absurd the Jewish attack on me. Notwithstanding this I
have not answered any of the letters, nor have I replied to any of the attacks
that have been published. As your personal representative I have
determined to discuss the subject only with you.

To
which letter President Roosevelt replied as follows:

PERSONAL
AND
CONFIDENTIAL
August 30, 1943

Dear
Pat:

Thanks
for yours of August nineteenth referring to a printed story in Drew Pearson's
column. You are quite right in answering none of the letters from Jews or
others who believe Drew Pearson's columns.

His
ill-considered falsehoods have come to the point where he is doing much harm to
his own Government and to other nations. It is a pity that anyone
anywhere believes anything that he writes.

So
much for Mr. Drew Pearson.

Always
sincerely,

(s) FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Patrick
J. Hurley (Chicago:
Henry Regnery Company, 1956), pp. 198-201

General
Hurley's frank description of perhaps the most influential columnist of the
1940s and 1950s as "propagandist Drew Pearson" was most apt.
The following notation appeared at the bottom of an anti-Zionist article
written by John Mitchell Henshaw in the spring of 1968: "The
late John Henshaw was chief legman for columnist Drew Pearson, who later broke
with Pearson. At that time, Henshaw’s expenses were paid by the Anti-Defamation
League, a lobby for Israel, which had a "special relationship" with
Pearson. Thus Henshaw’s Middle East insights are unique."

Pearson
was also responsible for the phony story after James Forrestal's death from a
fall from a 16th floor window of the Bethesda Naval Hospital that he had made
four "previous" suicide attempts and that, before being
"treated" at Bethesda, Forrestal had run from his villa at Hobe
Sound, Florida, in the middle of the night exclaiming, "The Russians are
coming." (See "Who
Killed James Forrestal?" and "James Carroll on James
Forrestal".) No one worked harder to sell the story that the
strongly anti-Zionist and anti-Communist Forrestal killed himself than did the
propagandist Pearson.